Love At First Fright
by Kaen Okami
Summary: Modern AU. Of all the ways Hakuryuu had thought about meeting a potential boyfriend, accidentally knocking out an actor at a haunted house out of pure terror was not one of them. But then again, being dragged to a haunt on Halloween night, he should have known to expect the unexpected.


**A/N - Based on my first and only experience in a haunted house, though I didn't react quite as strongly as poor Hakuryuu and Alibaba. Dedicated to tumblr user melodious-mullet-number-nine, who put up with being my Kougyoku throughout the whole thing. :)**

 **~0~**

Hakuryuu had known, from the moment that Kougyoku had excitedly pointed out the poster for Darkside Haunted House at the mall and told him and Alibaba that she was friends with one of the scareactors there and that they should totally go there for Halloween night, that this was a very, _very_ bad idea. If he hadn't agreed to this, he internally lamented, he could be on his living room couch with a blanket around him right now, eating cider donuts and candy stolen from the trick-or-treaters' bowl when Hakuei's back was turned, marathoning crappy horror movies and laughing at how un-scary they were.

But no, he just _had_ to give in to Kougyoku and Alibaba begging for him to come along (they had kept going even after he had pointed out that it was _entirely_ unfair for them to team up against him), and now instead of warm and safe at home he was here, outside in the cold at ten o'clock at night, hanging on to his little cousin's shoulders for dear life as the three of them trudged through the high-fenced maze that led up to the actual house. It was even darker than it had been in the queue line in the front yard, designed so that it was impossible to see what lay in wait around each corner until you actually turned it, and was lined with objects like lockers and chests and horror movie posters on the fences that had about a fifty percent chance of hiding a scareactor just ready to leap out and make Hakuryuu's life flash before his eyes.

With that lovely thought entering his mind again, he tried to subtly move closer to Kougyoku (who, despite the fact that she was clutching her Gyarados plushie so hard her knuckles had turned white, was the only one of them who had the guts to actually move forward without prompting), but found himself somewhat blocked.

"H-Hey, Alibaba, give me some room, will you?"

Alibaba had one arm wrapped around Kougyoku's waist and the other around Hakuryuu's - it wasn't just the boys' reluctance to go further in that made their progress so slow. "You've got plenty of room!" he snapped. "R-Really, you guys should be grateful that I'm putting myself in such a weird position just to make you feel safe!"

Kougyoku snorted derisively. "You're lucky I'm letting you two hang on me like this. If we were anywhere else, I wouldn't, but it'd be terrible of me to push you away when you're so scared."

"Wh-Who's scared?!" Alibaba squawked. "Hakuryuu totally is, but what makes you think that I'm scared?!"

Kougyoku had barely opened her mouth to sigh when a hidden hatch in the fence beside them flew open and the grotesque, garishly painted face of a monster clown shot out and screeched as loud as it could right in their faces. It disappeared back behind the fence within a second, but the three teenagers were panicking for a good minute, Hakuryuu practically jumping up and down with fright, Alibaba all but attaching himself to Kougyoku's back like a baby monkey, and Kougyoku bone-white and howling to the sky for everyone to calm down. Once they all managed to, there was a moment of silence before she slowly retracted her nails from Gyarados' neck and said, " _That's_ what makes me think you guys are scared, Alibaba."

"Oh, shut up," Alibaba growled into her shoulder blades. "Let's just try to get into the damn house already."

The next corner was not open like the others. Instead, it was styled like a tunnel in a medieval dungeon, narrow and lit only with tiny electric candle, and seemed to be there just so the haunt could have two particularly intimidating corners in one. Hakuryuu got the sense that if Kougyoku weren't there to drag them along with her, he and Alibaba would have spent an embarrassingly long time pushing and squabbling over who had to go first into it. As she led them through it at a pace that seemed to him painfully slow, Hakuryuu felt the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach grow worse and worse with each step and the anticipation of yet another jump scare. "They're all nice, chill people," he murmured to himself. "They're all nice, chill people..."

When they reached the end of the short tunnel into a small ring of grass that looked like it led into one final straightaway, all three looked around for a moment to check and be sure it was empty, and as soon as they were, they let out a collective sigh of relief. But before it was halfway out of their mouths, a wild, raucous laugh rang out behind them, and they spun around so fast and so awkwardly that Hakuryuu was nearly thrown to the ground. In the next second, all three of them cried out and flinched back from the man dressed in a hockey mask and orange prison jumpsuit, with dark dreadlocks down to his waist and a long black machete in his hand, all spattered with blood - _fake_ blood! It all had to be fake, Hakuryuu reminded himself firmly, even as his heart pounded.

The man chuckled at the three teenagers cowering in front of him, his shadowed eyes surveying them all and landing on Kougyoku, who had instinctively thrown one arm out in front of her cousin and friend and hadn't lowered it yet and had the other hand in a death grip around Gyarados' neck. "You kids ever been to _jail_ before?" he growled, in a voice too rough and staticky to be his real one - Hakuryuu suspected a voice changer underneath his mask.

Kougyoku gave him a shaky smile, anxiously playing with the strings of her sweatshirt. "N-Nah, man, we went to holding," she said in a cocky voice that was not at all her own. _Who the hell is she imitating?_ Hakuryuu wondered. "There's a _biiiig_ difference!"

Hakuryuu didn't understand it, but it made Hockey Mask let out another peal of harsh laughter and made Alibaba poke his head out with a distinctly annoyed look on his face. "Was that from that stupid web show you won't stop watching?!"

"Shut up! _50% Off_ is a work of art, you asshole!" Kougyoku snapped at him.

"Yeah, you got a problem with quality shows, runt?" Hockey Mask snarled, stepping forward and brandishing the machete at Alibaba, who quickly squeaked and ducked back between the other two.

"N-Nope, not at all!" he whimpered, burying his face back in between Kougyoku's shoulders and Hakuryuu's hands.

That only make Hockey Mask lean in closer, which in turn made Hakuryuu yelp and skitter to the side, holding his hands up defensively in front of his face. "What's the matter? You _scared_ , little punk? You should be, I've lopped off heads for less!"

"Uh...Uh...If you could just point us to the actual house...?" he asked tentatively.

"Y-Yeah, that would be great, thank you," Hakuryuu put in, making sure at least eighty percent of his body was hidden behind his cousin's before he spoke. He got the feeling that he'd probably be just as scared of this guy out of costume as he was now. _They're all nice, chill people..._

"What, you can't even lift your head up to look for yourself? It's right over there," Hockey Mask informed them, pointing behind them with the machete. Alibaba promptly grabbed the others and started backing down the path with them in tow.

"A-Alibaba, are you sure this is necessary?" Hakuryuu asked, backpedaling fast to avoid being run over.

"Of course it is! I don't know what you guys' siblings teach you, but if there's one useful thing my big brother taught me, it's never turn your back on some big guy with a hockey mask and machete?"

While Hakuryuu was wondering how exactly Kassim had taught him something so specific, Hockey Mask chuckled. "You kids'll want to be careful," he warned. "Even when you don't see us, we're _always_ watching." And with that, he turned and ran off into the bushes behind the tunnel, dreadlocks flying behind him, to lie in wait for the next unsuspecting guests to come through.

"Hmph. Creep," Alibaba muttered.

"You know, we don't need to panic at all of them," Kougyoku reminded them both - and herself too, probably, Hakuryuu thought. "It's like the nice ghoul at the queue line said, right? 'Do not touch the actors, because they will not touch you.'"

"I...I-I had a perfectly good reason to be scared!"

"Oh, yeah? Why were you?"

" _Because shut up!"_

Kougyoku snickered, and would have poked some more fun at him, when she happened to turn and recognize the actress stationed in front of the haunted house's front entrance. "Oh, hey, Mariam!"

At the sound of his adoptive sister's name, Alibaba spun around so fast he nearly threw Kougyoku and Hakuryuu to the ground. "Mariam?! What are you doing here?!"

"I'm _working,_ aniki," Mariam laughed, tipping her large witch's hat to them. "What else would I be doing here?"

"It's nice to see a familiar face in here that's not these two," Kougyoku said, ignoring the boys spluttering in indignance behind her. "I didn't know they were hiring middle schoolers, I didn't expect to see you here!"

"Yeah, I'm here with onii-chan. We _told_ you we got a job for the month. Did you see the prisoner guy with the machete back there? That was him."

"What?!" Alibaba shouted, his voice going up at least three octaves. He whipped around again to yell to the empty space behind them: "Kassim! I'm going to kick your ass later!"

The only response was the loudest howl of laughter yet in the distance. While Alibaba fumed, something occurred to Hakuryuu. "Wait, so she's _not_ the actor you said you knew, Kougyoku?"

"No, he told me he works in the actual house," she said, shaking her head. "And that he was looking forward to seeing us come through."

"Well, whoever it is, best not to keep him waiting," Mariam said. "Before you go in, I just have to go over the rules: inside the house, there is no running, no smoking or drinking, no touching the props or the actors, no fire or firearms, no refunds, and - " She glanced at the Gyarados still in Kougyoku's hands - "no Pokémon battles inside the house, okay?"

"Got it," Kougyoku answered for all of them. "You boys ready for this?"

"I guess s - "

"You bet!" Alibaba cut his friend off with a too-big smile, and Hakuryuu wondered with some annoyance if it had occurred to him that he had potentially made himself seem like a coward in front of the little sister who looked up to him and now had to redeem his 'big brave brother' image. Hakuren tended to do the same in front of him and Hakuei. "Lead the way, Kougyoku!"

"Good luck, everyone," Mariam singsonged, waving them all in through the door. "Oh, and by the way? _Never look behind you."_

Hakuryuu gulped as the door closed behind them, but Alibaba was, or at least was pretending to be, filled with renewed confidence. striding down the front hall between the cousins without a care in the world. When they reached the velvet rope at the end of it, and a man with a top hat, suit, and ghoulish face paint as white as his hair chuckled, "Welcome to Darkside!" and ushered them onto what appeared to be a small elevator, Alibaba gave him a bright smile and a big 'thank you,' while Hakuryuu swallowed hard and moved close to Kougyoku again. _Don't think too much of it,_ he thought. _It'll only last until they start really trying to scare us again._

When the man in the suit closed the 'elevator' door on them, it instantly became impossible to see, the darkness so thick that you could cut it with a chainsaw - which Hakuryuu had begun to dread was coming for them in the near future. In fact, now that he thought about it, said darkness seemed to be growing even thicker, and closer...and closer still...

"The walls are closing in!" Kougyoku screeched, grabbing Hakuryuu by his jacket and Alibaba by his shirt, yanking them both in close, and squeezing her eyes shut.

"It's okay, Kougyoku," Alibaba tried to reassure his trembling friend, wincing as her nails dug into his shoulder. "It's just a trick, right, Hakuryuu?"

"K-Keep talking, Alibaba," Hakuryuu whimpered, burying his face into Kougyoku's shoulder.

"Okay...Uh...Uhhh...Oh, no need, it's over now!"

The other two looked up to see that the room had lightened marginally, enough to show an opened doorway opposite the one they had come in through, that led to another, equally dark hallway illuminated only by blue strobe lights. "W-Well...I guess we'd better move on," Kougyoku said, stepping forward into the hall, gently tugging the again-reluctant boys along with her.

They walked through the second hall, then through an area full of black plastic curtains (nearly getting turned around more times than any of them liked) and into a rectangular room lined with makeshift jail cells and odd-smelling fog. All around them, chains rattled, door creaked, indiscernible _things_ scratched menacingly in the cells, and Hakuryuu couldn't tell whether any of the sounds was a distant recording or was actually being made by something close by _._ It was too dark to see completely inside most of the cells, the shadows revealing only red splatter stains and dismembered body parts, and that didn't ease his fear at all when combined with the distinct feeling he had that they were being watched. He suppressed another whimper and shuffled along faster.

Just when they were about to pass the last cell in the room, something rushed out and slammed into its bars with the force of a cannonball, and Hakuryuu's head snapped around and put him face to face with huge, wild eyes and a Glasgow grin that would make the Joker cry. "Come here, kiddies! I'll put a big _smile_ on all your faces!" its hulking titan of an owner shouted as he rattled the bars, and then roared with laughter when the teens collectively shrieked and darted into the next room, Hakuryuu lapsing back into his survival mantra:

"They're all nice, chill people! They're all nice, chill people!"

"Are you serious, dude?! They're - _Aiee!"_ Alibaba had to stop short to keep from running headfirst into a dummy corpse dressed in tattered scrubs, hanging from the ceiling by what looked like a meat hook. "Agh, they're everywhere!" he cried, taking hold of Kougyoku's arm with both of his own and looking frantically at the dozen or so identical bodies that dangled, cranked up and down by the chains on the hooks, all around the green-tinted room.

"Ohh..." Unlike her friend and cousin, Kougyoku had recovered quickly from the last room's fright, and as they walked through this room, she peered curiously at its centerpiece: a life-size model of a doctor with a demented grin, bloodstained rubber gloves, and a huge meat cleaver leaning over a table, to which was strapped another model of a gruesomely gutted man, his face frozen in a silent scream. "I wonder who made all of this!"

Hakuryuu took one peek at the models, his eyes landing right on the guts spilling out of the victim's stomach that looked way too real for him, and his stomach turned in disgust. "Let's keep going before one of _them_ jumps out at us, too!"

"Oh, come on, they're _clearly_ fake," she reproached him as they neared the next door. "We don't have to worry about th - "

An earsplitting scream cut her off and made them jump about a foot in the air (Alibaba actually knocking his head on one of the hanging bodies this time), and in the next split-second they were all grabbing at each other and frantically backpedaling as a girl with a mane of matted green hair the same shade as her bloodstained hospital gown came bolting out of the darkness straight at them. "No! Don't go in there!" she kept screaming. "He'll kill you! _He'll kill you! Don't go!"_

The closer she came, the more the trio were practically falling over each other in their desperation to do the exact opposite of what she said, their voices mingling with hers:

"Where the hell did she come from?!"

"I don't know, let's get out of here!"

" _They're all nice, chill people!"_

" _Shut the fuck up, Hakuryuu!"_

"No, where are you going?!" the girl shrieked, practically throwing herself at their feet as they rushed out of the room. "Don't! They don't cure you, they kill you! _They'll kill you!"_

Neither she nor her howls followed them past the black curtain into the next room, but that didn't offer the slightest bit of relief. This room, even darker than the last, had a pungent smell of meat that made Hakuryuu's nose wrinkle and was filled with the fake corpses of boars hanging from the ceiling instead of humans. Somewhere, the piercing shriek of a chainsaw started up, and Alibaba shrieked wordlessly right alongside it, hanging off of Kougyoku's arm like a drowning man to a life preserver. Hakuryuu let out a long, low whine of fear, his heart pounding and his body shaking as he clung tightly to her shoulders again.

"I-It's okay, guys," Kougyoku tried to console them. "I'm sure we're a-almost out...And hey! It hasn't been so bad, has it?"

"Speak for yourself!" Alibaba screeched so hard his voice cracked.

"Kougyoku...I think you just jinxed it," Hakuryuu whimpered as they entered the next room, pressing his face into the hood of his cousin's sweatshirt when he saw what its theme was. "This is even worse than the crazy hospital girl!"

The ever-present strobe lights were erratic and bright red, putting a disturbing tint on the countless clown faces that leered and grinned at them from all over the walls as they tentatively began to make their way through the sickly sweet fog that filled the small series of short, winding halls. Stock carnival music played from what Hakuryuu presumed were hidden speakers, but he couldn't tell whether the maniacal laughter was real or recorded as well. Of course they couldn't be content with that goddamn clown from the walk in - they just _had_ to include the whole demented circus. With every step through it, even if he was trying his hardest not to _see_ any of it, at least, Hakuryuu's nerves were being wound tighter and tighter as his breathing and heartbeat grew faster and harder.

 _Calm down,_ he tried to tell himself. _It's okay._ _Kougyoku said this was probably the last room, and she's right, you saw the house, it's not that big, there can't be much more. There'd better not be much more...If I don't get out of this house in the next minute, I'm going to lose it!_

They had turned one corner, then two, then three without seeing a single actor, and Hakuryuu was just beginning to think that maybe this one would be empty too, when mad laughter echoed through the hall (his stomach dropped at the realization that it couldn't be fake) and all of a sudden Alibaba and Kougyoku screeched and lurched sharply back.

"Aw, what's wrong?! You're not _scared,_ are you?!" shrilled something that sounded _way_ too close. Hakuryuu, morbid curiosity getting the better of him, peeked out from Kougyoku's hood, and with a jolt of fright he immediately wished he hadn't when he saw _monster clown_ not six inches away, staring _right at him_ and stretching his red-tinged lips as far as he could. "Are you _scared,_ little boy?!"

After that, three things happened nearly at once:

First, Hakuryuu, thoroughly terrified at having a clown yell in his face, let out a choked yelp and stumbled back, away from the other two.

Second, someone else shouted right into his ear: "What's the problem, kiddo, you scared to look at me?!"

And third, out of pure fright, Hakuryuu spun around so fast the world turned to an iridescent blur around him for a moment. He couldn't stop his arm from swinging out as he did, and so he only had time to catch a glimpse of the beginnings of shock in a pair of wide crimson eyes before his elbow slammed into the nose between them so hard their owner was immediately knocked to the ground.

When he realized what had just happened, Hakuryuu let out another startled noise, and was about to bend down to help the actor up, when an absolutely terror-stricken Alibaba grabbed him and bodily hauled him into the next room after Kougyoku. A moment later, however, he seemed to regret his haste to escape the circus room as soon as he realized what he'd actually escaped into.

"Agh, fuck, it's _dark in here!"_ he wailed. There were no strobe lights to brighten up this room - in fact, there were no lights at all. Hakuryuu put a hand up in front of his face to check if he'd be able to see it, and saw only inky blackness in front of him.

"Don't worry! It's just like the elevator in the beginning!" Kougyoku called from somewhere, still trying to calm them down and for the first time, actually sounding genuine. "We just have to find the way out, there's nothing here!"

Exactly one second later, a chainsaw roared to life right next to them, and she let out an unearthly screech not unlike an overheated teakettle. " _Neverfuckingmindletsgo!"_

The three of them screamed just as loudly as the chainsaw, as what for all they could see was a huge, grunting shadow detached itself from the darkness and started charging like a bull right for them. For a few unbearable moments, all Hakuryuu could do was run and flail around directionlessly, his only thought an incoherent shriek of terror. Then by dumb luck he tripped over something that a startled cry told him was Alibaba's leg, and the next moment the three of them had all fallen out an opened door onto the grass, the night air cold on their faces.

They laid there in a heap for one stunned moment, processing their sudden freedom. Kougyoku was the first to snap out of it, wriggling out from underneath the other two and jumping up triumphantly. "We did it, guys! We're out!"

Alibaba and Hakuryuu exchanged a glance, and then leapt to their feet together, sporting identical grins. "Yeah, we did it!"

"We're free, let's go!"

High on their exhilaration, the three of them sprinted across the house's front yard and down into the field where the parking lot had been set up, yelling jubilantly all the way to Kougyoku's car. "Hey, Hakuryuu, call Hakuei and let her know we're out and on our way to Alibaba's house, will you?" Kougyoku asked as she started the car and backed out of their space. "And I know our voices are going to be really hoarse from all the screaming, but try to sound as unaffected as possible. She was all worried about you trying out a haunted house. I mean, it's really sweet of her, but it's like she thinks you're eight instead of eighteen."

"Well, she won't have to worry, because now I can tell her that I did just fine!" Hakuryuu said proudly, fishing his phone out of his jacket pocket, when Alibaba spoke up from the backseat.

"Hey, Hakuryuu, did you really punch out that one guy?"

"Huh?" he said, dropping the phone back into his pocket.

"What? Who punched out who now?" Kougyoku asked as she pulled onto the main road.

"I mean, I couldn't really get a good look, but before I grabbed you, it kind of looked like you punched one of the actors right in the face?"

"Oh...Yeah." Hakuryuu slumped back, his head knocking against the seat, all the happiness washing out of him as the memory made him feel like a complete and utter asshole. "I didn't mean to hit him, I just...got scared and turned around too fast and he was way closer than I thought and - Hey, quit laughing, Kougyoku!"

"Sorry! It's just that - _Wow,_ I knew you'd get scared, but not _that_ scared!" she got out between giggles. "Not enough to knock a poor actor out!"

"I didn't knock him out! At least...Shit, I don't know. I probably did, though. Elbows are hard. And now that I think about it, I think I heard a crack. Damn it..." He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. "I'm the biggest dick in the world."

"Oh, no, you're not!" Alibaba hurriedly assured him. "You're only kind of a dick, that's all!"

When her cousin's response to that was a long, drawn-out groan, Kougyoku said, "Don't be so dramatic, Hakuryuu. Yes, it was a dick move, but it's not the end of the world." She looked thoughtful for a second, and then asked, "Hey, what did the guy look like? Did you see?"

"Uh...He had these big red eyes, but that's - "

"Did he have black hair, too? Long black hair?"

"I-I think so, now that I think about it," Hakuryuu stammered, taken aback by the sudden excitement in her voice. "But I don't really - "

He was cut off by another burst of laughter. "Oh my god! I think...That was probably Judal! The guy I know, he's the only one I've ever met with red eyes and black hair!"

"Really?!" Well, way to make him feel like even more of a tool - not only had he hurt somebody, he'd hurt his cousin's friend, the poor guy. "Shit, I'm sorry - "

"Don't apologize," she said dismissively. "He might not have had it coming this time, but I'm surprised he hasn't been punched in the face more than he has. Oh my god, this is _too_ funny! I mean, I meant for y - uh, us to first meet him here, but never like this!"

Hakuryuu let out a deep sigh. "Well, if he's your friend, then at least there's one silver lining to all this. Can you take me to meet him sometime soon so I can apologize? I _really_ didn't mean to hit him."

"Sure I can. And don't worry, I'm sure he'll be cool about it. If I know Judal, he's probably laughing about it right now."

"Sure."

" _Really!_ I can call him up tomorrow and prove it. Now, just put it out of your mind until then, and enjoy your Halloween."

~0~

The next day, Hakuryuu's stomach was turning over and over as he let an overly cheerful Kougyoku lead him through the park to where she'd said Judal would be waiting. She'd spent the car ride in assuring him again that the other boy wouldn't hold the accident against him, claiming that he had said in their phone call that he was looking forward to formally meeting Hakuryuu, but it didn't put his mind to rest at all.

"Oh, there he is!" Kougyoku said, and Hakuryuu's head snapped up to look as she waved. "Hey! Hey, Judal, we're here!"

Her calls caught the attention of a lanky boy leaning against a tree, with a long black braid snaking out from under a dark red beanie. He glanced up from his phone, grinned, and waved back. "Yo!"

When he stood up and started towards them, giving them a full view of the thick bandaging on his nose, something in Hakuryuu's chest clenched. "Shit...I really did break your nose, didn't I?" he mumbled, shamefacedly looking at the ground. "I'm so sorry."

To his surprise, he felt something gentle patting his hair, and looked up to see Judal grinning brightly with one hand on his head. "Hey, don't worry about it - Hakuryuu, your name was? It's cool. I went to the doctor after the haunt closed and they patched me right up. Really, I'm fine."

"Y-You're sure?"

"Sure I'm sure!"

"Well, I'm glad to see you boys are getting along," Kougyoku said, smiling brightly even as she began to back away. "So I'll just go on and _leaveyoutwoalonetogettoknoweachotherbye!"_

Before Hakuryuu could fully process what she'd said, his cousin had whipped around and bolted back towards the parking lot. _Wait...What?!_ "K-Kougyoku! Hey! Kougyoku!"

"Nope, gotta run! I'll pick you back up in an hour!"

While Hakuryuu sputtered wordlessly in confusion, Judal just quirked an eyebrow. "Huh. Didn't expect her to go and pull something like that. Then again, I'm not surprised..." Seeing that the younger boy was completely flustered and probably well out of his element, he moved his hand to start patting his shoulder instead. "Hey, it's cool. Kougyoku never shuts up about her awesome family - when she's not yapping about her brothers, she's yapping about her cousins."

"Really?" This was certainly news to Hakuryuu. "She thinks that highly of all of us?"

"You bet she does. It's about time I got to finally meet one of you guys!"

Hakuryuu smiled shakily. "Well...That does sound good. She told me on the way over that you're a pretty cool guy, too."

"No kidding!"

"Yeah, and so far I think she was right. But to tell you the truth, now I feel even worse about hitting you," Hakuryuu admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "No offense, but Kougyoku said you would usually deserve a punch in the face - "

"Hah, of course she did! She got me this for my last birthday, even." He pointed at the long-sleeved black shirt that stated in white lettering, _My death will probably be caused by being sarcastic at the wrong time._ "She said it was a gag gift, but I think she was _really_ serious about it."

"Yeah, she probably was," Hakuryuu laughed. "But last night you were just doing your job. I mean, I _paid_ you guys to scare me, so I shouldn't have - "

"Hey, what'd I tell you? It's _fine._ And from what Kougyoku mentioned last night, I think your sister took it way worse than either of us, is that right?"

"Oh, yeah..." He felt his cheeks warming, and cursed the fact that they were probably noticeably pink now. "When I called her last night...Well, I had to tell her what happened, or Kougyoku and Alibaba would have. She, uh, kind of freaked out. I had to hold my phone, like, six inches away from my head, she yelled so loud at first. I can't imagine how you guys deal with everyone screaming all around you for the whole night, come to think of it."

"Eh, you get used to it," Judal said with a shrug. "And we keep a stash of earplugs and honey tea and stuff in the staff-only sections."

"I should have made something like that for my sister. I think she was more second-hand embarrassed than anything, and she was fine when I came home later, but she really let me have it for a minute. And then she had to take a second to turn around and yell at my mom to stop laughing so hard."

"Should I be surprised at that? Kougyoku's told me plenty of crazy Aunt Gyokuen stories."

"Believe all of them, she doesn't need to exaggerate. I could hear it in the background, my mom just laughing like Cruella de Vil or something, because apparently her son accidentally punching a guy so hard his nose broke is _hilarious."_ He had held out the faint hope that Gyokuen would have ended up dying of her evil laughter by the time he

"At least you didn't do it on purpose - I could have gotten _way_ worse than a little crack in the nose."

"Really?" Hakuryuu asked, startled. "Like what?"

"Like some people will - You know what, let's not just stand here," Judal remarked. "It's a nice day, let's not just stand around here. Leaves are changing all over the place, the pond's nowhere near freezing over yet - you want to walk around a bit?"

Well, that would certainly make all of this less awkward, especially since the older boy was proving surprisingly easy to talk to. "Yeah, sure. There's a coffee shop on the other side of the park that makes pretty good hot chocolate, if you want to go that far."

"Sounds good. We can just let Kougyoku know where we are later so she can pick you up there," Judal said as they started down the winding stone paths that ran through the park. "So like I was saying - at least you only wound up hitting me by accident. A lot of people do that, it's the fight or flight instinct thing. But me and all the others who work at Darkside, we've had to deal with plenty of assholes who come in just to punch the actors or grope the girls or some other dick move. Masrur - that's our chainsaw guy - one time someone actually brought a lighter in and tried to _set him on fire."_

"They _what?"_

"I know, right! That's the only time I've ever seen him break the 'no-touching-the-guests' rule, he grabbed the guy by his belt and the back of his shirt and literally tossed his ass out the door." He snickered. "It was pretty much the best thing I've ever seen. But there was this other time that Dunya, the one from the medical horror part, did her whole running and screaming thing, and she scared this one big guy so bad that he actually chased her off the set so he could 'get her back' for it. The rest of us realized what was going on pretty quick and we pulled him off of her and kicked him out, but she ended up having to go to the hospital."

"That's awful!" Hakuryuu burst out. "Why would anyone do that on _purpose?"_

Judal snorted derisively. "Big cars aren't the only way some guys can compensate for something, I guess. Either that or they're drunk, or both. But, you know," he went on, brightening, "those are just the exceptions. I know not many people would think of it this way, but seriously, being a scareactor is pretty much the _best job ever."_

"Really?"

"Yeah! You would not _believe_ the wild shit you wind up seeing when you work at a haunted house. Sure, there's a lot of tough stuff to deal with, but people's reactions make it all so, so worth it."

"Like the three of us last night?" Hakuryuu said with a smirk.

"Exactly - no offense, but your faces were _priceless,_ definitely worth getting elbowed in the face for. And that's just the average response to me and my friends in there. I have seen people breaking down sobbing, yelling for their mothers, totally ruining their pants, _everything._ Listen, you and that Alibaba guy should _never_ be embarrassed about hiding behind Kougyoku the entire time, because better to do that than be so scared you run off without her."

"Do people get so scared they ditch their friends, then?"

" _So_ much! One time there was this big jock-looking guy who came in with his girlfriend who was like half his size, and he was trying really hard to act all tough and unscareable. But the second I jump out at them, the girlfriend _faints_ and the guy just runs away screaming his head off, straight through Masrur's room and out of the house! He didn't even come back to see if she was okay, and she was _pissed_ when she woke up. I don't know what happened after that, but when she left she looked like she was about to go and strangle a tiger with her bare hands, so I doubt it was anything good for the poor guy!"

"Probably not," Hakuryuu agreed, trying to bite back a laugh. "Alibaba's girlfriend is literally a lion in human form. Not that he ever would, but if he pulled something like that without even trying to see if she was all right, I think she'd kick him into orbit."

Judal didn't bother suppressing his laughter. "Now _that's_ a great mental image."

"Hey, while we're on the subject, what's the funniest thing you've ever seen at the haunted house?"

"Hmm..." He glanced upward for a moment as he thought about it. "I can't put my finger on one specific time, but I _love_ it when the kids come through. No, no, don't get the wrong idea!" he said quickly at the look on Hakuryuu's face. "I don't like _scaring_ them - half the time I just wonder why the fuck the parents thought it would be a good idea to drag in their poor kid who's too young to know that none of the monsters are real. But it's the times when the kids are either old enough or flat-out ballsy enough to get through the haunt okay that it _really_ starts to get fun for us. Rohroh, that guy who scares you in the jail cells, told me about this one time this kid didn't get scared when he roared and shook the bars at him. She just turned to her mom and asked, 'Is he real?' The mom said yes, and the kid looked back at Rohroh and smiled and waved hello at him, and he thought it was so cute he had to back up really quick so they wouldn't see him breaking character."

"Wow. I feel kind of upstaged now, knowing that this little kid just smiled and waved at something that made three high schoolers hysterical."

"Some kids are _way_ tougher than you'd think. Like..." A devious grin began to spread on Judal's face. "He won't want me telling you this, because it'll definitely get back to his little brother through you, but you know Kassim? Machete guy? A couple weeks ago, two parents and their about six-year-old kid came through the maze, and he jumps out at them with his laugh and his machete, like he does. The parents scream bloody murder, but the little kid, without hesitation, steps forward and just _kicks_ him right in the balls."

"No way!"

"Hey, if you don't believe me, just ask him in front of Alibaba and watch his face turn pure white. That's how he looked when he realized someone told his sister he got floored by a six-year-old, after all. Hey, come to think of it, what happened with them after they got home? Kassim was bragging backstage about how he scared the shit out of his little brother; did Alibaba realize it was him?"

"No, Mariam had to tell him. You should have seen Alibaba when the two of them came home after the house closed last night! There we all were, just peacefully eating candy apples, when Alibaba notices his brother's car pulling in. He drops everything, bolts across the house, _leaps out the living room window_ while screaming Kassim's name, and then just tackles him right there on the front lawn!"

"They actually started _fighting_ over it? Who won?"

"Neither of them, actually; we just let them wrestle for a while so they could get all their feelings out, as Kougyoku put it, and they only stopped when their moms finally got annoyed and told Mariam to go out, pull them apart, and bring them back inside. It's easy for her to do: neither of them want to hurt her even by accident, so she'll just put herself between them until they both feel too awkward to keep fighting over whatever started it."

"Sounds like the kind of thing my mom would do," Judal said thoughtfully. "My little brother is disgustingly cute, so I would never want to - Oh! _Oh!_ That reminds me!"

"Reminds you of what?" Hakuryuu asked, raising his eyebrows.

"There _was_ one specific time I can think of that was the funniest! I don't know why I didn't remember it when you asked, because this was fucking priceless. Okay, so there's this woman, right, and she's coming through holding her toddler - don't ask me why, though. I've got to hand it to the kid, he was shaky and kind of looked like he was going to cry, but the mom looked like she was going to totally lose her mind if one more thing popped out at her. So naturally I put on my scariest face, laughed like the Headless Horseman, and jumped right for her."

"Did she run away?"

"Yeah, but that's not the best part: before she did, she screamed, ' _TAKE HIM,'_ like a goddamn banshee, and literally _threw her little kid_ at me like a child sacrifice!"

Hakuryuu tried, he really did, but he couldn't help it: he burst out laughing, so hard that for a moment he couldn't speak. "She...She _what?!"_

"You heard me! Like, I didn't want the kid to get hurt, so I caught him without really thinking about it, but then I'm just standing there like an idiot with this freaked-out kid in my hands and I have no idea what to do! I look over at my partner Markkio - he's the clown who got in your face - and the fucking idiot is just standing there laughing and not even trying to help!"

"Well, to be fair, having a monster clown come right up to him probably wouldn't have helped the kid much..." Hakuryuu mused.

"True, but I think he just liked watching us both suffer. Thankfully, Masrur saw the woman run out and heard me panicking in the next room, so he took off his mask and came out without the chainsaw to take the kid back out to his mom. I think he liked Masrur a lot more than he liked us. Can't imagine he'd be very happy with his mom after that, though."

"Yeah, I bet. Sounds like the kind of thing my mom would do, actually. Not so much the screaming freakout part - _nothing_ scares her - but the throwing your children under the bus and leaving them at the mercy of evil clowns part."

Judal just laughed. "We close after Halloween, but send her through Darkside next year and we'll see about that. I guarantee you, we scare _everyone_ at some point. But hey, I've spent all this time rambling on about me and my job - what about you? I've heard about you and your family from Kougyoku, but that's hardly enough. I love my job, what kind of things do you like?"

"Oh...Well..." Caught off guard by the abrupt change in subject, Hakuryuu had to stop and think for a bit. "I'm still not sure what I want to do as an actual job yet, but...I'm really into gardening. You know, like, working with rare plants and all that."

"Plants?" Judal echoed as if he'd never heard the word before. "You find that interesting?"

Far from being offended, Hakuryuu just smiled. _Prepare to be amazed, Judal._ "Definitely. Some wild plants do things that _you_ wouldn't believe. Like, have you ever heard of snapdragons? They're nicknamed the dragon skull flower, because at first they're all bright and pretty, but when they start dying..."

~0~

"So your oldest brother and your sister help your dad run his company, what about your other brother?" Judal asked, leaning back on the sidewalk bench outside the coffee shop. "Kougyoku mentioned he runs his own business?"

"Yeah," Hakuryuu confirmed, taking another gulp of his hot chocolate. "Hakuren runs his own karate studio in the city. It's kind of small, but I've been there a couple times and it's pretty popular. If you ever want to check it out, I could show you."

"Mm, that might be a good idea," Judal agreed, lifting his free arm and looking at it sadly. "These skinny chicken arms aren't going to help me at all if I ever get into an actual fight. And considering my line of work, I should probably learn how to better take a punch if I want to get into it professionally, eh?" he added, gesturing to his bandaged nose with a smirk.

"Yeah, probably," Hakuryuu murmured, glancing away in embarrassment again. "Listen, I'm probably getting annoying with it by now, but I really am sorry about that."

"Don't _worry_ about it. Good grief, to hear you go on, anyone would think _you_ were the one who got hurt! It's okay, _really."_

"Thanks for being so nice about it, too. I know I was scared, but still, I should have been more careful. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you..."

"Well..."

At the hesitation, Hakuryuu looked back up and was surprised to see the older boy suddenly looking very tense and somewhat pale, as if he were steeling himself to say something. "What is it?" he prodded gently.

"Well...I was thinking...Only if you want to, of course, but..." Judal turned quickly to look Hakuryuu in the eyes as the words spilled from his mouth. "Will you go on a date with me?!"

Hakuryuu blinked in surprise, momentarily speechless. It was clear that they'd been getting along much better than he had thought they would over the past hour, but this...This was much more than he had expected. "I...Y-Yeah, sure! Th-That would be great!"

"Really?!"

"What, you didn't expect me to say yes?" Hakuryuu said with a breathless laugh.

"Uh...I didn't exactly know what to expect. Are you sure? Like I said, you don't have to if you don't want - "

"No, I really do!" Hakuryuu said, sliding closer to Judal on the bench. "You've been really cool and it's been fun talking to you, and I'd like to get to know you better. I'll definitely go."

Judal's face split into the brightest smile Hakuryuu had seen all day, and he was about to say something else when another voice from right behind them made them both jump. "Did I hear that right, boys?"

Both of them whipped around to see Kougyoku standing there looking like Christmas had come early. "Well? Did I?" she pressed excitedly.

"I...I've got a date now, if that's what you were thinking," Hakuryuu said, pointing helpfully to Judal, who nodded.

Kougyoku practically squealed with delight, clasping her hands together. "Oh, that's _great!_ You guys look so cute together already!" While Hakuryuu and Judal exchanged awkward smiles, she seemed to switch gears. "Now, Hakuryuu, if you could just run in there and grab me a small hot chocolate and a bagel before we go, that would be great," she said, taking a five-dollar bill out of her pocket and offering it to him.

"You know, you could get it yourself," he pointed out, even as he stood up and took the money anyway. "Why do I have to?"

"Because I'm your little cousin, who you love, and who is also your ride back home. Now go on, the line's not that long."

Grudgingly, Hakuryuu went, and Kougyoku looked down to grin at Judal. "So, you two had a good time, then?"

" _Great_ time," Judal corrected, returning the grin. "When you offered to set me up with your cute cousin, I didn't expect it to turn out this well."

"Glad to hear it. But you know, I'll expect you to return the favor at some point. _Quid pro quo,_ and all that."

"Don't worry, I will."

"I think I'd like a nice real-life Matsuoka Gou-type girl this time. As of now, I've sworn off men after the whole fiasco with King Fuckboy last summer," she informed him, her lip curling in disgust at the memory of her ex-boyfriend.

"Duly noted," Judal assured her, chuckling. "I'll do my best."

"Thanks. I really am glad you and Hakuryuu hit it off so well; I think you'll be a lot happier with each other than I was with my boyfriend. Hakuryuu's nervous about getting into a relationship, but he did tell me he thought it would be nice to be in one. Though you'd better treat him right," she warned, her tone abruptly turning severe. "He's got three older siblings, me, and ten cousins who will not hesitate to kick your ass if you do anything to hurt him, even if you are my friend."

"Don't worry about that either. The last thing I want to do is pull a Sinbad." Judal turned to look at Hakuryuu through the glass of the coffee shop window. "Especially on such a nice guy."

Kougyoku followed his gaze, and her face softened. "So, you think my cousin's worth getting a broken nose for?"

Judal just smiled. "Definitely worth it."

 **~0~**

 **A/N - Darkside Haunted House is an actual haunt on Long Island. It's the only one I've ever been to, so I decided to just set it there and try my best to remember what it was like, with help from my friend who went with me. I haven't been there in a year, so I don't know how accurate my depiction of it is, but I hope I did it justice. If you ever get the chance to,** _ **go,**_ **it's** **a** _ **great**_ **scare!**

 **Also, the stories Judal tells Hakuryuu about the things he's seen on the job are all based off real accounts from haunted house patrons/workers that I read while researching for this fic. I don't know if I could handle it, but being a scareactor sounds like such a fun job, even with the constant risk of being punched in the face. :)**


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